How many Sailors, How many Captains 1949

'How many Sailors, How many Captains' by Serge Charchoune looks like it was made with oil paint or maybe pastel, with a dry brush or possibly a rag, in short, with an experimental approach. Just look at the yellows, pinks, greens, browns, blacks—they're all scumbled and built up into a complex surface! I feel for this guy, I do, because when you’re making a painting, you’re trying to make something from nothing. The artist is coaxing these marks and lines into being, hoping they’ll add up to something meaningful. It feels like he’s pushing and pulling forms in and out of focus, like some half-remembered dream. The marks almost look like they are encoded, which I can deeply appreciate. Painters are always in conversation with one another, and with those who have gone before them, exchanging ideas across time. The materiality of paint offers a world of possibilities for expression and ambiguity, and this painting opens up a space for our own interpretations to take shape.